Catalog Number

Type

Date

Contributor

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, California

Extent

28 p.

Description

Early semiconductor product quality, reliability and supply issues drove customers to demand second sourcing, which had become the standard practice in the industry for all products when Intel began preparing to launch the 386. However, by the 1984-85 timeframe, more reliable process technology and new production methods (such as Intel's "copy exactly" and use of duplicate factory "internal second sourcing") had addressed many of these issues. In parallel, the advent of the IBM PC had driven the demand for the new 32 bit version of the Intel microprocessor line, the 386. The resulting debate about second sourcing or sole sourcing the 386 within the ranks of the company's executive team changed the marketplace forever and largely ended the process of cooperative second sourcing in the industry.
The four panelists (Jack Carsten, Tom Dunlap, Dave House, Ted Jenkins), all Intel executives significantly involved in that debate and its outcome, discuss the issues underlying the debate, the decision made and its consequences to the computing and semiconductor industries.